1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for testing wireless devices, and in particular, methods and systems for testing wireless devices in parallel to reduce overall test time by interleaving portions of individual data packets into a composite packet for analysis.
2. Related Art
Many current handheld devices make use of wireless “connections” for telephony, digital data transfer, geographical positioning, and the like. Despite differences in frequency spectra, modulation methods, and spectral power densities, the wireless connectivity standards use synchronized data packets to transmit and receive data.
In general, these wireless-connectivity capabilities (e.g. WiFi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, etc.) are defined by industry-approved standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16) which specify the parameters and limits to which devices having those connectivity capabilities must adhere.
At any point along the device-development continuum, it may be necessary to test and verify that a device is operating within its standards' specifications. Testing takes time, requires specialized instrumentation and adds to the cost of producing such devices. Therefore, it would be desirable to have techniques for reducing overall test time without compromising on required thoroughness.
When devices are tested contemporaneously, test-time per unit is reduced by the number of devices. For example, if testing a single device takes 100 seconds, and testing four of them contemporaneously can be done in 100 seconds, then the test-time per device becomes 25 seconds. Further, if each contemporaneous packet can be used for more than one test-sequence capture, then overall test time can be reduced even more.